Recently we got together at our Marketing Forums to do a collective brainstorming to compile a list of the best practices for Radio Marketing.

Radio is somewhat ignored by a lots of people but, if used correctly, it can be very effective for your marketing campaign!

Here are the tips that we came up with -

1. In major metropolitan markets, advertising during prime time (7 to 9 a.m. and 4 to 7 p.m.) can run anywhere from $250 a minute to $1,000 a minute.

What I would suggest you is that you try overnight advertising. Overnight spots are usually undersold at many stations and you can usually get them at a discount. You can easily buy $500 of overnight ads on the big stations in town at $10 a pop, you can run 50 ads over the course of a week. That will likely work very well for you!

2. Don't write "conversational" spots unless the conversation sounds completely natural. Friends don't give friends business addresses, phone numbers, directions, or positioning statements in a natural conversation, no matter how strenuously they're recommending a business or a product.

3. Don't use background music unless it's relevant and adds something to the commercial.

4. If you ever use the words "for all your [x] needs" in a radio commercial, please hit yourself in the head with something sharp. I've never met a good writer who uses that phrase, much like there's never been a good commercial that contains the phrase "but wait, there's more!"

5. Comedy is hard to write. Don't do it unless you really know how.

6. Don't put directions in a radio commercial, or an address, or a phone number or web address, unless they're REALLY easy to remember after hearing them ONCE while dealing with all the distractions that come from driving a car that's moving 70 miles per hour. Why assume that your prospective customer was listening, with pen in hand, eagerly waiting for your commercial to come on so they could write down your information?

7. Develop a hook, positioning statement or theme that you use in EVERY radio commercial you EVER do.

8. Remember that every spot you ever run simply adds to your prospect's ongoing mental file on your business. They'll remember the great spots just as much as they remember the ones that sucked.

9. There are plenty of guys like me out there who would be happy to write and produce your radio stuff on a freelance basis for FAR less that you'd expect.

10. Don't EVER, EVER put the words, "See our ad in the Yellow Pages" into a radio commercial, unless yours is without a doubt the biggest, best and most prominent ad in the YP. "See our ad" also means "see the ads of every one of our competitors". You don't want them to think about your competitors when they're ready to buy. Using your radio commercial to send them to the YP is to take 30 or 60 seconds that belong exclusively to you, and you alone, and suddenly fling the gates open and share that time with your competition. It's a waste of money, and it's says in neon lights, "An inexperienced writer did this commercial."

What radio commercials do BEST is IMAGING and POSITIONING, and supporting other ad buys.

What radio DOESN'T do well - and unfortunately, most radio salespeople are too ignorant to understand this - is drive a customer to a particular location for a particular sale on a particular day based on an airing of three or four spots.

And there's a reason for that: Although it was different in the days of "The Shadow", radio is now a transitory medium. It's something that, more often than not, you're using while you're doing something else. It's safe to assume from that, that potential customers won't drop whatever they're doing and rush straight to your store, or pull over and write down an address like "17425 Sycamore Lane NorthWest, Suite 14B". So what your radio commercial SHOULD do, is do such a great job of planting your name in the prospect's head that when they have the time, they remember you well enough that they can find you in the White Pages, in the mall, or in the place you told them to find all the details they need (like address, directions etc) when they have time to look for them.

Example: Have you EVER heard a McDonalds commercial that gave you an address, or directions? How about Home Depot?

If you have more tips to add to the list, then please post them here. We would really appreciate it.